I really like when popular music
artists get political. Plenty of rap artists dissatisfied with the status quo
have been criticizing Trump by name well before he was elected. But rap has
always been a genre on the fringes of society that interacts with politics
quite frequently. I think we’d all be lying if we said we never wondered what
it would be like if an emo band wrote a song about Trump. And from my field
research, Such Small
Hands by La Dispute is a pretty emo song that could easily fit the bill. Inversely,
if Trump wrote his own emo song, it would sound something like this:
This artifact makes a pretty clear
political statement and criticism of Trump. I think there comes a point in
satire where you can’t just see it as an impolite joke anymore. Media has a
hypodermic effect, and associating Trump with a laughable emo tweet music video
isn’t the kind of thing you’d want for the candidate you support.
This piece of satire interestingly
enough did very little to exaggerate. Aside from a dramatic voice and
background music, there is no new content in this video. The tweets used are
all real things Trump posted. In doing this, the creators are highlighting a
specific feature of his character they believe the American public should
oppose.
This video pushes back against the
image Trump is attempting to curate that paints him as a confident and poised
leader. He intends for his tweets to be read in a specific way, probably assuming
everyone in the audience can imitate his voice in their heads. Instead, the emo
vocals and dramatic guitar expose the theatrics of Trump’s tweets and his
child-like perspective in his concept of the world. In parodying his boastful
tweets, it takes the power out of Trump’s small hands and into the nation.
The video begins with cheery music
and soundbites of Team Trump™ remarking
on the Trump plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Air horns, whistles, and
other sound effects play as the creator sequences clip after clip of republican
leaders contradict themselves and fail to predict reality. Zooms and other
visual techniques are used to satirize the situation. It’s amazing to me that a
major health care policy transformation is happening in our government right
now and our instinct is to seek comedic relief from the Internet such as this.
Making
comedy of our nation’s politics takes us outside of the madness of our everyday
lives to think: This is really happening. A man that has said those words and
done those things is doing this with
our country. Obviously, republican leaders want their party to be viewed as a
very well-oiled machine, but this video exposes them as uncoordinated and confused
as ever; especially in the highly manipulated clip of Jeanine Pirro yelling at
Paul Ryan as he is depicted dabbing in sync with launching cannons. It’s
content like this that makes the ridiculous things Team Trump has said in the
media sound even more ridiculous. I can’t decide if I think this is a uniquely skewed
perspective of reality, or reality.
I loved the introduction to this blog. Both of these videos I found both hilarious and scary at the same time. You make a good point that in a nutshell there is always truth behind a joke, in this case it's a scary one. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis was a very well-constructed blog that was very entertaining to read. I love how this video made Trump look unintelligent. It takes actual tweets that our President wrote and twist them into a humorous video that exemplifies his stupidity. I like that you pointed out that there were no exaggerations made in the video. Sadly, this is our reality. This points out that Trump is the most un-presidential President America has ever had and he clearly cannot handle the job that comes with the Oval Office.
ReplyDeleteThe first video you chose perfectly describes his tweets and how silly some of the things he posts are. I think many Americans can agree on the fact Trump should tweet less and focus more on the most important job in the United States. Also, more and more rappers today are talking about Politics in their music. If you listen to rap from, lets say the 1980s or 1990s, the rhetoric of rap is a lot less Political. Music Artists have always rapped about Politics in history but with Trump as President, Rap and music in general will get way more political.
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